Summer 2009: from the EAA

By Allison Dykes

Dear Friends,

Catch the Spirit!

For the past several autumns during Emory Homecoming Weekend, the Emory Alumni Association—the entire Emory campus, really—has encouraged alumni and students alike to Catch the Spirit.

For Homecoming 2009, “Catch the Spirit” has taken on additional meaning. We’ve designated September 26, Homecoming Saturday, as Emory Spirit Day. On Emory Spirit Day, we want to blanket the world in blue and gold.

No matter where you are on September 26, we hope you’ll wear an Emory shirt, don an Emory cap, fly an Emory pennant, drink out of that plastic Emory cup you picked up at Dooley’s Ball, and show the world that you’re proud to be Emory alumni.

There are more than 110,000 alumni out there. The man living next door and the woman who manages the bank could be fellow alumni, and you might never know it. On Spirit Day, we hope to break down all those barriers and have a lot of fun while doing it. As an extra bonus, we’ll look really sharp, too. Blue and gold are an excellent color combination.

On Spirit Day, you can wear your colors for a day, but we hope you’ll make the memories last a lifetime. We invite all our spirited alumni to send us your pictures in Emory gear. We’d like to know your stories, too. Did you hold a cookout with your Emory friends or make a new friend after seeing her in the grocery store with her Emory shirt? Let us know, and we just might post your picture or reprint your story on the EAA website or in an alumni publication such as this one.

To learn more about Spirit Day, including how to submit photos and even purchase discounted Emory gear, visit the Emory Spirit Day website (www.alumni.emory.edu/spiritday).

One place where we’ll see a lot of Emory shirts September 24 through 26 is campus, but Spirit Day is just one aspect of Emory Homecoming Weekend. From Oxford to Atlanta, Emory alumni, students, parents, faculty, and staff will be celebrating our community at dozens of events.

Among our thousands of campus visitors will be hundreds of alumni who’ve returned to Emory for their class reunions. If your graduation year ended in a “4” or a “9,” whether you were an undergraduate or graduate student, this is your reunion year. During the past few years, Emory’s reunions have exploded in popularity (and fun). So many things have changed about campus (classroom buildings, residence halls) and your classmates (hairlines, waistlines), yet so many things have stayed the same (friendliness, attractiveness of both the campus and, I’m certain, you and your friends)—your class reunion is an experience not to be missed.

You can find out more information on our Reunions webpage at www.alumni.emory.edu/reunions. The EAA sends most of its reunion updates electronically, and we don’t want you to miss a message. If your address information isn’t up to date, please visit the EAA’s main website at www.alumni.emory.edu and click on “Update Your Info.”

At reunion time or anytime, there are many ways to stay connected to your alma mater. The EAA’s website is your most comprehensive source for alumni news, and it’s updated nearly every day. You can register for alumni events anywhere in the world, update your alumni information, and much more.

You can follow the EAA on Twitter (www.twitter.com/EmoryAlumni) or read our regular updates on EAAvesdropping, the EAA’s blog (eaavesdropping.blogspot.com). E-Connection (www.emory.edu/econnection) is our online social and professional community that now boasts more than three thousand members. If you want to connect with your fellow alumni, E-Connection is the place to do it.

Have a great summer, and I hope I’ll see many of you—especially our reunion classes—on campus this fall for Emory Homecoming Weekend. And don’t forget to include a trip to the Miller-Ward Alumni House during your visit. It truly is the house that you built. And if you can’t make it back, I look forward to browsing all of your pictures from Emory Spirit Day no matter where you are. If you have any questions about the EAA or Emory in general, please send me an email at adykes@emory.edu. It’s always a pleasure hearing from you.